Dreaming Out Loud

Drown Me With Rain

Chapter 84: Drown Me With Rain

Eli entered the Inn side at Granny's, which didn't seem suspicious, as he was staying there at the moment. But when he found no one behind the front desk, he cautiously peeked at the scheduling book that was open on the desk. It was lucky for him that Granny still did her bookings like this and not on a computer, for he wouldn't have been able to find what he needed if that were the case. Besides him, Leopold, and Neal Cassidy, there were only two other rooms occupied, one by the Swans, and then another by a man named Derek Jeffries. By process of elimination, he knew this hand to be the man he was looking for. He saw that he was upstairs in room thirteen and with Granny and Ruby both occupied with the start of the dinner rush, he crept up to the room and knocked on the door.

"Open up!" he demanded. Obviously, the reporter didn't feel threatened, even by his demanding tone and answered or perhaps that was more his curious nature as a reporter. He couldn't know that he would regret this action and pay for it dearly.

"Who the hell are you?" Derek questioned, as Eli brushed past him into the room.

"My name is Prince Eli...and we need to talk," he responded. Derek scoffed.

"Prince Eli? Seriously?" he inquired sarcastically.

"I am Snow's father," he stated. The man snorted.

"Of course you are," he deadpanned.

"I don't pretend to know much about this world, but I know I cannot allow you to do anything that will hurt my daughter and son-in-law," he stated.

"I'm a reporter...it's my job to report the truth and that's what I'm going to do when I can find the smoking gun I need that will be undeniable proof that all of this is true. Even then...some won't believe it. Others will flock here to see it for themselves, probably including government officials. But that's not my problem," he said nonchalantly.

"The hell it's not!" Eli snapped hotly.

"You're not going to do this...you're going to give me all the information you have on my family and then you're going to leave this town!" the Prince growled. Derek rolled his eyes.

"Or what?" he challenged. He almost missed the sudden darkening behind Eli's eyes, before he roughly grabbed Derek by the collar of his shirt.

"Or I'm going to make you pay...and if that doesn't scare you, keep in mind that I am the reason that Hades no longer rules the world of the dead. I helped dethrone him and I made him pay for his evil," Eli hissed.

"I endured almost six decades in the river of lost souls and sheer, constant torture. So I paid him back by giving him a taste of his own medicine," he boasted, as he wrapped his hand around the man's neck and began to squeeze.

"I warn you not to test me, Mr. Jeffries..." he added.

"You're...crazy..." he uttered, as he gasped for air.

"Not if you do as I ask," he ordered.

"Fine...just let me go..." the reporter pleaded. Eli finally released him and he gasped for air.

"I'll show you the files on my hard drive and my files online. You can watch me delete them," Derek offered, as he held his hands up in surrender.

"Not good enough...just give me this device or computer or whatever it is and I'll take it to my granddaughter. She'll know what to do with it," he insisted.

"Okay..." the reporter agreed, as he side-eyed the other man, before grabbing his laptop and rushing toward door. But Eli grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Derek struggled against the Prince, who was stronger and tried to pull away, as he tried to pry the laptop away from him. His grip on the computer slipped and he stumbled back, before he went crashing to the floor. But not before his head hit the dresser on the way down. Eli breathed heavily, as he stared at the device in his hand and then at the man on the floor, as blood slowly pooled around his head. He backed away and swallowed thickly, as realized what he had done and how it was going to look to his family. A family that he was still on very shaky ground with.